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NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M

NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M is a mid-range, DirectX 11.1 compatible mobile graphics card announced on January 2013. It is based on the GeForce GT 645M, but with slightly higher clock rates. Power consumption may be slightly lower due to minor improvements. In addition to the GK107 model, there is also a version with the GK208 chip and a 64 bit memory interface.

Architecture

The Kepler architecture is the successor to the Fermi architecture that first appeared in laptops with the GeForce 400M series. The GK107 Kepler core offers two shader blocks, called SMX, each with 192 shaders for a total of 384 shader cores that are clocked at the same speed as the processor core. Although more shader cores are available in the Kepler architecture as compared to the Fermi design, the Kepler shaders are expected to be up to two times more power efficient. However, due to the missing hot clock of the shader domain, two shaders of a Kepler chip are as fast as one shader of a Fermi chip even though Fermi shaders are clocked at twice the speed.

PCIe 3.0 is now supported by the mobile Kepler series and an optional Turbo mode can automatically overclock the Nvidia card by a theoretical 15 percent if the laptop cooling system allows it. The implementation of this boost mode is done in the BIOS, but it is ultimately dependent upon the manufacturer of the laptop.

Performance

The gaming performance of the GeForce GT 730M equipped with DDR3 VRAM depends on the clockrate and should be on the same level or slightly above an average GT 640M/GT 645M. Therefore, demanding games like Battlefield 3, Hitman: Absolution, or Far Cry 3 are playable in 1366x768 resolution and medium settings. Less demanding games like Dishonored can be played fluently with maxed out settings at full HD resolution settings.

Features

The improved feature set now includes support for up to 4 active displays. Furthermore, high resolution monitors of up to 3840x2160 pixels can now be connected using DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 1.4a if available. HD-Audio codecs, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, can be transmitted via bitstream mode through the HDMI port. However, as most laptops will feature Optimus, the integrated GPU will likely have direct control over the display ports and may limit the feature set available by the Nvidia Kepler cards.

The 5th generation PureVideo HD video processor (VP5) is also integrated in the GK107 core and offers hardware decoding of HD videos. Common codecs such as MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4 ASP, H.264 and VC1/WMV9 are fully supported up to 4K resolutions while VC1 and MPEG-4 are supported up to 1080p. Two streams can be decoded in parallel for features such as Picture-in-Picture. Another novelty is the inclusion of a dedicated video encoding engine similar to Intel QuickSync that can be accessed via the NVENCI API.

The power consumption of the GeForce GT 730M should be similar to the GT 640M or possibly slightly less. As a result, the Nvidia GPU is best suited for multimedia notebooks 14-inches in size or greater.

ManufacturerNVIDIA
GeForce GT 700M Series

GeForce GT 750M SLI 768@967MHz

GeForce GT 750M 384@967MHz

GeForce GT 745M 384@837MHz

GeForce GT 740M 384@810MHz

GeForce GT 730M 384@725MHz

GeForce GT 735M 384@889MHz

GeForce GT 720M 96@938MHz

ArchitectureKepler
Pipelines384 - unified
Core Speed *725 MHz
Shader Speed *725 MHz
Memory Speed *900 - 1000 MHz
Memory Bus Width64/128 Bit
Memory TypeDDR3
Max. Amount of Memory4096 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 11, Shader 5.0
technology28 nm
FeaturesOptimus, PhysX, Verde Drivers, CUDA, 3D Vision, 3DTV Play
Notebook Sizemedium sized
Date of Announcement01.01.2013
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

3DMark 11 - Performance 1280x720
0% 100%
min: 1846     avg: 1956 (19%)     max: 2135 points
3DMark 11 - Performance GPU 1280x720
0% 100%
min: 1739     avg: 1858.3 (17%)     max: 2059 points
3DMark Vantage - P Result no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 7046     avg: 7282.7 (20%)     max: 7607 Points
3DMark Vantage - P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 6472     avg: 6805.7 (18%)     max: 7359 Points
3DMark 06
0% 100%
min: 10851     avg: 11062 (38%)     max: 11418 Points
3DMark 05 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 16882     avg: 16882 (46%)     max: 16882 Points
3DMark 03 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 28285     avg: 28285 (19%)     max: 28285 Points
Unigine Heaven 2.1 - high, Tesselation (normal), DirectX11 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 21.2     avg: 21.8 (14%)     max: 22.3 fps
Cinebench R11.5 - OpenGL 64Bit
0% 100%
min: 33.75     avg: 35 (40%)     max: 36.26 Points
Cinebench R10 - Shading 32Bit
0% 100%
min: 6013     avg: 6077 (56%)     max: 6111 Points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

Crysis 3
Crysis 3 (2013)
low:
44.3  fps      Compare
med.:
28  fps      Compare
high:
19.6  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Dead Space 3
Dead Space 3 (2013)
low:
169.7  fps      Compare
med.:
79.7  fps      Compare
high:
62  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 (2012)
low:
7 47.1 ~ 27 fps      Compare
med.:
15 39.6 ~ 27 fps      Compare
high:
23.4 29 ~ 26 fps      Compare
ultra:
7.1 8 ~ 8 fps      Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Assassin´s Creed III
med.:
35 38.2 ~ 37 fps      Compare
high:
33 35.6 ~ 34 fps      Compare
ultra:
11.5 12 ~ 12 fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Hitman: Absolution
low:
41 41.8 ~ 41 fps      Compare
med.:
32 33.2 ~ 33 fps      Compare
high:
16.9 17 ~ 17 fps      Compare
ultra:
7 7.4 ~ 7 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
low:
82.5 83 ~ 83 fps      Compare
med.:
64.6 70 ~ 67 fps      Compare
high:
36.3 39 ~ 38 fps      Compare
ultra:
23 23.2 ~ 23 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
low:
57  fps      Compare
med.:
51  fps      Compare
high:
31  fps      Compare
ultra:
18  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
low:
61  fps      Compare
med.:
50  fps      Compare
high:
40  fps      Compare
ultra:
28  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Dishonored
Dishonored (2012)
low:
75.8 79 83 ~ 79 fps      Compare
med.:
71.9 72 73.9 ~ 73 fps      Compare
high:
65 66.1 68.5 ~ 67 fps      Compare
ultra:
40 40.1 ~ 40 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
World of Tanks v8 (2012): Playable with a weaker graphics card in detail settings med.. - more...
Fifa 13
Fifa 13 (2012)
low:
228.7 230 ~ 229 fps      Compare
med.:
167.8 198 ~ 183 fps      Compare
high:
163 166.2 ~ 165 fps      Compare
ultra:
109.7 112 ~ 111 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
F1 2012
F1 2012 (2012)
low:
89  fps      Compare
med.:
77  fps      Compare
high:
71  fps      Compare
ultra:
34  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Borderlands 2
low:
66  fps      Compare